Terry Jacks’s Seasons in the Sun. Rod McKuen took a great lyrical French song and turned it into English crap.
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time
What is a “season out of time”?
I’m another huge Dylan fan, but I alway laugh at the first couple of verses of “A Hard Rains A Gonna Fall”
It just felt like he was making it up as he goes along, like some sort of improv party game.
I met a …young child beside a … dead pony.
I met a …black man…that walked a white dog
I met a …young girl…she gave me a …rainbow
But then I hit the last verse, which has some of the most brilliant Dylan lyrics ever, then all is forgiven
I’m going back out before the rain starts a fall in’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and there hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioners face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where non is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect if from the mountain where all souls can see it.
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing.